Public Policy is social agreement written down as a universal guide for social action. We at The Policy ThinkShop share information so others can think and act in the best possible understanding of "The Public Interest."

In the Summer of ’64 the parents of today’s baby-boomers marched down to Mississippi to protect the right of people to vote. Antebellum southerners were still in their Civil War psychosis and America was still contemplating the civic role that African Americans would play in its future. Today, a person’s right to vote is still a point of contention in our country. Half a century on, the American obsession with inequality and social deprivation still belies a more perfect union.

Race is still a key ingredient in motivating political races. Festive political contests are still defined by racial party politics. American economic competition, social mobility and racial antipathy are alive and well; while Lady Justice puts on the robes of the Tea Party and looks through the eyes of racial angst at an American populous too beleaguered by a long recession; an economic impasse that has called into question not the American Dream but the American middle class itself.

Even in this new millennium, American obsession with “what to do with the race problem?” perplexes a slumbering middle class as an opulent upper 1% looks down. Even as the Latino community takes its place as a majority while perched at the bottom rung, America slumbers forward into the cyber abyss–so modern and high-tech yet seemingly devoid of wisdom, foresight and vision for a tomorrow for all the people by all the people.

Let freedom ring! And when it rings who’s listening?

And when so many of us are now free, what are we free to do?

It seems that when millions are finally free to work and aim to be middle class–the middle class has all but disappeared.

“IN A corner of the immaculate lawn of Mt Nebo Missionary Baptist Church, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, lies a long tombstone adorned with fresh flowers. Nobody is buried there; the stone is a memorial to James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, three young men who came to Neshoba County, of which Philadelphia is the seat, in the summer of 1964 to register black voters. On June 21st Klansmen allied with the county police stopped their car, shot all three at close range, and buried them under a dam.”

American demographics are being transformed by recent recessionary pressures on migration patterns. Also, Latino Americans have not only been growing numerically but in terms of being an increasingly larger portion of the populous for a significant period of time. We don’t have to be social historians to see it. It is increasingly evident. This means that the American social landscape is significantly becoming more Latino, especially in markets, cities, states and regions where Latinos have been a significant part of the polity and are beginning to have a voice. The implications for the coming elections, healthcare reform and workforce development needs, for example, are increasingly being discussed. The Pew Center for Research does a fine job of keeping us posted, along with The Policy ThinkShop, on these matters …

“The language of news media consumption is changing for Hispanics: a growing share of Latino adults are consuming news in English from television, print, radio and internet outlets, and a declining share are doing so in Spanish, according to survey findings from the Pew Research Center.

In 2012, 82% of Hispanic adults said they got at least some of their news in English,1 up from 78% who said the same in 2006. By contrast, the share who get at least some of their news in Spanish has declined, to 68% in 2012 from 78% in 2006.2

Half (50%) of Latino adults say they get their news in both languages, down from 57% in 2010.

The rise in use of English news sources has been driven by an increase in the share of Hispanics who say they get their news exclusively in English. According to the survey, one-third (32%) of Hispanic adults in 2012 did this, up from 22% in 2006. By contrast, the share of Hispanic adults who get their news exclusively in Spanish has decreased to 18% in 2012 from 22% in 2006.

These changes in news consumption patterns reflect several ongoing demographic trends within the Hispanic community. For example:

A growing share of Latino adults speak English well. Today 59% of Latino adults speak English proficiently, up from 54% in 2006 and 2000, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Slowing immigration. As migration to the U.S. has slowed (Passel, Cohn and Gonzalez-Barrera, 2012), the share of Hispanic adults who are foreign born has declined. Today about 51% of Hispanic adults were born in another country, down from 55% in 2006 and 54% in 2000, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Growing time in the U.S. With the slowdown in migration, the average number of years lived in the U.S. among Latino adult immigrants has grown, from 16 years in 2000 and 17 years in 2006 to 20 years in 2011.

U.S.-born Latino adults on the rise. Annually about 800,000 young U.S.-born Latinos enter adulthood (Taylor, Gonzalez-Barrera, Passel and Lopez, 2012). Many are the children of immigrants, and a significant share are third or higher generation. These groups are much more English proficient than are immigrants.”

Today’s Mexican Americans were once native Americans. Today they makeup the largest “minority” in our nation. America’s makeup is changing and Ellis Island and Pilgrims are no longer what is driving and shaping America. Today’s America is more and more Latino and its growth currents and demographics are being shaped by a continuously growing Mexican American population.

What are you doing to understand this reality for your business, your professional goals or the diversity that is omnipresent in our labor market? Read the following article from the Pew Foundation to help you understand…

“The size of the Mexican-origin population in the U.S. has risen dramatically over the past four decades—from 5.4 million in 1970 to a record 33.7 million in 2012. Between 1980 and 2000, the arrival of Mexican immigrants was the main driver of growth, but as immigration from Mexico slowed between 2000 and 2010, U.S. births overtook immigration as the dominant source of U.S. Mexican-origin population growth. Despite slowing immigration from Mexico, Mexican immigrants are by far the single largest immigrant group in the U.S.”

Like this:

Latino population growth, touted by some and warned by others for decades now, is finally a tangible reality. The impact of demographic change and the potential that it is having on workforce, consumer and political markets is the subject of much conversation these days and it is finally breaking the xenophobic fever of some in the Republican establishment, traditionally more liberal, and even on the fringe…

“Republican opposition to legalizing the status of millions of illegal immigrants is crumbling in the nation’s capital as leading lawmakers in the party scramble to halt eroding support among Hispanic voters — a shift that is …”

Healthcare reform and Immigrant reform are both on the policy table. We all need to be at that table supporting a reasonable and fair solution to the important issues of the day:

Who gets to come to America and what quality of life they will have when they get here.

At the Policy ThinkShop we will be blogging resources and information to keep you on top of these important public policy topics. Stay tuned…

“Nearly two-thirds of the 5.4 million legal immigrants from Mexico who are eligible to become citizens of the United States have not yet taken that step. Their naturalization rate—36%—is only half that of legal immigrants from all other countries combined, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of federal government data. A nationwide survey of Hispanic immigrants by the Center finds that nearly all (93%) who have not yet naturalized say they would if they could. But barriers such as a lack of English proficiency and the financial cost of naturalization are identified as reasons why many legal immigrants have not yet done so.”

The Pew foundation continues to light our path forward with data that illuminates a view of a future, more diverse America that seems to be here now…

“The racial and ethnic composition of young voters has shifted dramatically over the last four presidential elections.

Just 58% of voters age 18-29 identified as white non-Hispanics, while 18% were Hispanic, 17% were African American and 7% identified as mixed-race or some other race. The share of young voters who are white has declined 16 points since 2000, when 74% of voters under 30 identified as white and 26% identified as nonwhite.

This stands in sharp contrast to older voters. Fully 76% of voters 30 and older were white, down only six points from 2000. Only 24% of voters 30 and older were nonwhite, including 12% who identified as black and 8% as Hispanic.

The changing demographics of the young vote are significant because President Obama’s support among young voters declined in 2012 among many of the same subgroups in the overall electorate in which he lost ground, particularly whites, men and independents. His losses among young voters since 2008 might have been even greater, but for the fact that Obama won young African Americans and Hispanics by margins that were about as large as in 2008.”

The Pew Hispanic Center put together some nice tables and statistics on the Latino vote in the President Obama reelection victory … Clearly Latinos played the biggest role ever in this election since the Clinton victory of 1996. Of course, PRWOA (the welfare reform law Clinton passed) was not en evil in itself. What is evil is the employment picture that followed that reform, till this day, in terms of folks that were thrown off the roles and into a jobless economy. Go figure?

After the Clinton victory, Clinton payed them back with welfare reform… Hope President Obama pays better… Ya think?

In any case, enjoy the numbers…

Latinos voted for President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney by 71% to 27%, according to an analysis of exit polls by the Pew Hispanic Center, a Project of the Pew Research Center.1

Obama’s national vote share among Hispanic voters is the highest seen by a Democratic candidate since 1996, when President Bill Clinton won 72% of the Hispanic vote.

The Center’s analysis finds that Latinos made up 10% of the electorate, as indicated by the national exit poll, up from 9% in 2008 and 8% in 2004.2 The analysis also shows that as a group, non-white voters made up 28% of the nation’s electorate, up from 26% in 2008.3

Battleground States

Hispanics made up a growing share of voters in three of the key battleground states in yesterday’s election—Florida, Nevada and Colorado.

Post-Election Analysis

Changing Face of America Helps Assure Obama Victory

A Milestone En Route to a Majority Minority Nation

How the Faithful Voted: 2012 Preliminary Analysis

Obama carried Florida’s Hispanic vote 60% to 39%, an improvement over his 57% to 42% showing in 2008. Also, Hispanics made up 17% of the Florida electorate this year, up from 14% in 2008.

The state’s growing non-Cuban population—especially growth in the Puerto Rican population in central Florida—contributed to the president’s improved showing among Hispanic voters. This year, according to the Florida exit poll, 34% of Hispanic voters were Cuban while 57% were non-Cuban. Among Cuban voters, the vote was split—49% supported Obama while 47% supported Romney. Among the state’s non-Cuban voters, Obama won 66% versus 34% for Romney.

“LATINOS are Republicans,” Ronald Reagan is supposed to have said. “They just don’t know it yet.” The mass epiphany foretold by Reagan has been realised in at least one case: that of Susana Martinez, the Latina governor of New Mexico. At the Republican convention in August, Ms Martinez told an adoring crowd the tale of how she and her husband, lifelong Democrats, were persuaded to defect after a lunchtime discussion …

Two years after the U.S. labor market hit bottom, the economic recovery has yielded slow but steady gains in employment for all groups of workers. The gains, however, have varied across demographic groups, with Hispanics and Asians, in particular, experiencing a faster rate of growth in jobs than other groups. Their employment levels are higher now than just before the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, a milestone not yet reached by white and black workers.

The disparate trends in the jobs recovery from 2009 to 2011 reflect the rapidly changing demographics of the American workforce. Although jobs growth for Hispanics and Asians was more rapid than for other groups, it merely kept pace with the growth in their working-age (ages 16 and older) populations. The slower rate of jobs growth for whites and blacks reflects the relatively slow growth in their populations. Thus, the share of each group’s population that is employed, the employment rate, has barely risen since the end of the recession, according to new Pew Research Center analysis of government data.

Educational outcomes differ between native-born and immigrant Latinos and between Latinos and other racial and ethnic groups. Measuring those differences and the factors that produce them are critical to understanding the Latino future. The Center’s research focuses on trends in school enrollment and educational attainment.

Also see our statistical portraits, state and county databases, demographic profiles and Census 2010 tables for data on the characteristics of the Latino and foreign-born populations in the United States.

It has been nearly four decades since the United States government mandated the use by federal agencies of the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” to categorize Americans who trace their roots to Spanish-speaking countries, but the labels still haven’t been fully embraced by the group to which they have been affixed.

Only about one-quarter (24%) of Hispanic adults say they most often identify themselves by “Hispanic” or “Latino,” according to a new nationwide survey of Hispanic adults by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. About half (51%) say they identify themselves most often by their family’s country or place of origin-using such terms as Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran or Dominican. And 21% say they use the term “American” most often to describe themselves. The share rises to 40% among those who were born in the U.S.

Hispanics will account for three-quarters of the growth in the nation’s labor force from 2010 to 2020, according to new projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). One major reason is that the Hispanic population is growing rapidly due to births and immigration. At the same time, the aging of the non-Hispanic white population is expected to reduce their numbers in the labor force.

A second important factor is that Hispanics have a higher labor force participation rate than other groups. The nation’s labor force participation rate—that is, the share of the population ages 16 and older either employed or looking for work—was 64.7% in 2010. Among Hispanics, the rate was 67.5%. There are two main explanations for this gap: Hispanics are a younger population than other groups, and include a higher share of immigrants.

In seemingly endless times of “trash talk” that led to an improbable and unpopular political victory, the newly minted president clamors: “Now arrives the hour of action.” Fleeting relief comes to the nation as the transition […]

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